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It is a normal part of the Debian life cycle. A code freeze is announced and all effort goes into the testing branch to squash every bug possible before the next stable release. Multiply that for all the architectures supported. That is the way it has always been. That is why Debian Stable is so stable. The next Debian will be Gnome 3.4 based, and Xfce4 will be 4.8, and that is not going to change. If you want bleeding edge you need to run Sid and dip into experimental, and you really need to know what you are doing. Once Wheezy is released there will be an explosion of activity in Sid and so the cycle begins again.

actually I did run Sid and for a while i did experimental too. I personally have found the stable and unstable branches weren't all that stable either. I've had squeeze fail on me before from an update. I also don't find Sid to be that bleeding edge. Last time i checked its still using the 3.2 kernel. I chose Debian over Ubuntu because i found it to be more reliable and i find the half-year release dates annoying. I chose Debian over other distros because of compatibility. But, I've found Arch is actually more compatible and once set up, it's easier to use.

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I also don't find Sid to be that bleeding edge. Last time i checked its still using the 3.2 kernel.

Getting off topic, but anyhow ...

No argument from me. You have to dip into experimental to get the really new stuff. Even Ubuntu with their six monthly updates is miles newer than Sid at the moment. I run Sid with a 3.6 kernel and Gnome 3.6. I have tried Arch and it is a fine distro, I just have more than ten years of usage of Debian/Ubuntu/Sidux et al and I am stuck in my ways.

That's just too bit paranoid. Ubuntu with cooperation with VALVE and nVIDIA should become quite solid system (but I think KDE and Cinnamon are far better). However, if there's someone that wants Linux to be killed it's Icaza and some idiots from gnome camp who do everything to make gnome unusable.